LibGuides: English: Criticism & Scholarship

Finding Articles in Databases

On this page, you will find links to specialized databases relating to English literature. Use these databases to find citations and full-text links to articles from journals in related subject areas, as well as some citations to books and book chapters.

Please see the links below for journals by literary subject and geographic location.

Need help learning how to search a database and evaluate search results? See the Library's guide to searching, and our tutorial on how to read a scholarly article.

General Literature & Literary Criticism Databases

Bibliography of American Literature This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A printed record of 37,000 works of U.S. literature; 17th century-1930
Bibliography of American Literature describes in exhaustive detail the works of America's most important literary writers from the time of the Revolution to 1930. The collection is essentially the complete printed record of American literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive collection of primary texts, contemporary and historical criticism, reference sources, full text journals, and audio and video by and about authors from around the world. Search the ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) index of bibliographic citations for literary criticism here. Formerly Literature Online (LION).
Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A compilation of literary commentary, current.
Current; this resource is from the well-known Contemporary Literary Criticism and offers a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras and genres.
Literature Resource Center (LRC) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors, current.
Current; provides access to biographies, bibliographies and critical analysis of authors from every age and literary discipline. The LRC covers more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers, and indexes publications such as Contemporary Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Contemporary Authors.
London Review of Books This link opens in a new window
Provides access to detail from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy, 1979-present.
1979-present; the LRB is Europes leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the worlds best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
MLA Directory of Periodicals This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides information on more than 6,000 journals and book series
The MLA Directory of Periodicals, produced by the Modern Language Association of America, lists over 3,700 periodicals in the areas of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore that are covered regularly in the MLA International Bibliography. The directory provides addresses, advertising rates, and information about submission for publication.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Access to the bibliography of journal articles, books, and dissertations from the Modern Language Association, 1926-present.
1926-present; the MLA International Bibliography is a bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. The electronic version of the bibliography contains over 1.5 million citations from more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers.
World Shakespeare Bibliography Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to Shakespeare-related scholarship, 1960-present
1960-2012; the current release of the World Shakespeare Bibliography Online provides annotated entries for all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare and published or produced between 1960 and 2012.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Provides image and full text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.

If you are experiencing printing problems from JSTOR while using a Macintosh computer, please download the most recent version of Adobe Reader. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
If you need assistance, please contact the CIS Help Desk or eresources@brown.edu.
Literature Online (LION)
- This link opens in a new window
See ProQuest One Literature.

Journals for literary research accessible online

Ejournals: Literature

Additional Subject Guides

Nonfiction Writing Subject Guide
Comparative Literature LibGuide
Literary Arts Subject Guide
Library research tutorials
All Library Subject Guides
You may find any number of other subject guides to be of use, depending upon your areas of interest and courses that you are taking.